Sunday, September 24, 2006

I don't like to discriminate based on occupation or anything else for that matter, but I've been really struggling with my opinion of real estate agents lately.

Partially because I see my clients become homeless because no one will rent them a property and now with our own struggle trying to get a property.

We have applied for almost half a dozen properties and none of them have said yes. Another said 'No we don't want you' when I asked for an application.

I don't get it. Ok we have both have not the greatest paying jobs but we are applying for cheap 1 and 2 bedroom apartments. And more importantly we both actually have jobs which we have been in for moth than 6 months, we also have nothing bad on our credit files, rental history and we present fairly well.

I've also struggled with comments about 'Asian cooking styles'. Apparently the way same Asians cook ruin the house/apartment in some way. As for that stereotype I do most of the cooking and when Mr T cooks it's exactly the same way as I do.

We are both feeling the pressure at the moment as well since I will likely lose one of my part time jobs very soon and while I am hopeful I can find another it's not going to help our application if I have been in my new employment for a month or so. In comparison to my current employment length of 2+ years. Mr T is also looking for a new job so we are both eager to find an apartment before we change jobs.

On Sat we found an apartment we both loved. It's crazy because it's tiny, and far from perfect but it just felt right. It felt like our home. I handed in the application yesterday and today the real estate agent called to say they are still processing applications but so far it looks like we are in for a good chance.

I am also hopeful because sat morning we happened a great street and found two great things/places prior to finding the real estate agent on the same street.

First we discovered this cute little bakery called Natural Tucker Bakery which was very vegan friendly and reasonably cheap too. It even had vegan scones which were just liked the ones my grandma used to make. Then we found our new friend (below) who we just had to adopt from an op shop. We haven't decided on a name yet. Not sure what we will put inside it's pouch either. But we love it and hopefully it will be our good luck charm!

Whatever happens I will most likely not post for a few weeks. Life is a just a tad hectic at the moment with uni assignments, thesis(arghhhhhhhhhhhhh), applying for more apartments and jobs, and hopefully moving. So blogging is going to have been put aside until I have a little more time.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

If you are in a relationship and thinking that maybe your controlling/questionable behaviour from a partner will get better once you get pregnant/have a child think again!

New statistic from my class:

2 most common times when a partner initiates domestic violence:

1. when partner is pregnant2. when partner attempts to leave relationship

Other important motto:

partners for now, parents for ever

Fighting out custody arrangements, intervention orders and all the rest especially the way that policy changes (eg: Family Relationship Centres) are being made is going to be continually harder when you have children. As the popular argument that families are better together seems to gloss over domestic violence and sexual assault as if both are minor domestic issues that can and should be sorted so you can continue to be together.

Scary scary stuff!

*Disclaimer: of course not everyone who is planning to have children needs to concern themself about their partners becoming violent, but didn't want those with partners with questionable controlling/over jealous alarm bell ringing behaviours to gloss over this post.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Post Holiday Syndrome and veg restaurants in Sydney

Ok it doesn't exist, but if it did that would describe how I feel right now. Sad, annoyed, tired and not wanting to go back to participating in normal life crap, you know work, house work, home work and any other forms of stress and just general annoyance.

Sydney was great, Mr T and I managed to squeeze all we could have out of it for the 2 and a bit days we were there. We ate, and ate and ate, and shopped, and saw a lot, and just did pretty well at pretending that we had money to spend on all sorts of things we wouldn't normally spend it on. Like a yummy $15 cocktail.

While I was organised enough to pack the camera charger, and clear all the pics on the camera, and have it fully charged it somehow fell out of my bag on the way to the airport and remained in my car in Melbourne. So I purchased a disposable one but will have to get them printed the old fashioned way. Below are a few pics from Mr T's camera on his mobile in the meantime.

Now the biggest highlight food wise was the turnip cake that we had at Bodhi's, ok it's not the greatest turnip cake and can barely compare to great HK turnip cake. But it's the first place I have found veg turnip cake in Australia. Here it is pictured on the right. Also don't the pumpkin dumplings on the right look cute.

I should probably mention that Bodhi's was ok. Nice location, kind of classy, but overpriced and the food was just ok but it was so worth it for the turnip cake.

We then we to Mother Chu's another Chinese veg restuarant. It seems Sydney is filled with Chinese vegetarian restaurants. The interesting thing about Mother Chu's is that unlike most Chinese veg places they didn't name things after meat dishes well at least not in English. According to Mr T though many of the Chinese names did indicate in the normal way what meat dish it was supposed to resemble. So I'm not sure what this dish is supposed to be, it's English name was simply crispy gluten but boy was it yummy. One of the best dishes I've ever had.

Lastly we tried Pitt St vegetarian restaurant yum cha. Yes yum cha twice. Like Bodhi was disappointed by their BBQpork buns, they are normally my fav however they were both identical, I suspect the same frozen packet or something. They did however have a few yummy items. There coriander dumplings, such as great combination and those on the right which English name I forgot where also very yummy.

We also ate at some non Chinese veg restaurants. We had a yummy breakfast at Macro in Bondi Junction. I had the scrambled tofu which has pumpkin butter and avocado on the side, whereas Mr T had the mushroom place and instead of pesto on the side opted for avocado. The scrambled tofu was different from other scrambled tofu i've had, sweeter but still good.

We also had the misfortune of going to badde manors while we in glebe. The two dishes we had were pretty bad. I had the lentil burger below. It was the worst lentil burger I've had in my life. It tasted like someone has simply cooked up some lentils and mashed them together, with no spices and no sauce, and just added them in a bun with some salad. It was so bland. Mr T's dish was also pretty boring and tiny. It seems like badde manors is more of a cake shop with some veg food made by a meat eater who thinks veg food has to be boring and bland.

We also picked up some food items to take home. Including tiny little pestos which happened to be vegan and we fell in love with the handmade dark chocolates pictured below from the paddington market. The brown bag had the baby chocolate figs and we couldn't wait to munch into them as you can see from the crunched up bag. The others were: chili, ginger and lemon flavored.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

On tuesday my family had a small birthday celebration for Mr T since he will be in Sydney for his birthday on friday.

My mother arranged it and asked me about cakes on sunday night, giving me not enough time to make a cake. It's really not enough time for me to even think about making one.

However after lots of googling and then remembering something about a new catering service I found one place which made vegan blueberry cheesecake-Mr T's old fav. As pictured above. Sorry about the pic, but that's all there was left and I wanted to make sure it tasted great before I bothered taking a pic. Yes with me its all about the taste and the eating and then the pic always as an afterthought. Bad bad blogger I know.

It was made and delivered super quick and Mr T and I both enjoyed it. My family members who knew it was vegan thought it tasted a little different and others who didn't know thought it was delicious-yes such a placebo effect but thats for another post.

Anyway if you are in Melbourne and need a vegan cake they do other types of cakes as well, and lots and lots of different types of cheesecake. They also do mock meats and have different catering services available. As for their vegan cheesecake and service I couldn't recommend them enough, they are called:soulveg and have a orderform online with all their prices.

They are also going to start a cheescake of the month thing which sounds really tempting particuarly if you can do it with their mini cheesecakes.